


Come Home

by joely_jo



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode: s11e07 Rm9sbG93ZXJz, F/M, Post-Episode: s11e07 Rm9sbG93ZXJz, Season/Series 11, The X-Files Revival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-10 02:22:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15939815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joely_jo/pseuds/joely_jo
Summary: Post-ep for rm9sbg93zxjz. Picks up immediately after the credits roll. Sort of ignores the scene in the church in Nothing Lasts Forever as I’m finding it super perplexing to put into perspective of the rest of the season’s msr content. Vague references to all things.





	Come Home

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Notes: I am an old fan. I remember watching the first season when it aired. That’s how old we’re talking. But even though I spent a lot of time back in the day trawling Gossamer and was active on Yahoo Groups, I’ve never actually put pen to paper for these characters before. However, XF officially got me into fanfic and since then I’ve written for a bunch of different fandoms. But, due to starting a family, it’s been a while since I wrote anything, so I’d appreciate any and all feedback on this, good, bad or indifferent.

~~~

“We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place, we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there.”

                     Pascal Mercier – Night Train to Lisbon

~~~

 

There’s a gossip rag on the counter along from where they are sitting. Paparazzi pictures of two celebrities in sunglasses adorn its gaudy frontage and the headline screams SPLIT, FOR GOOD? in excited white capitals. A man in a striped shirt plays solitaire on his phone, another aggressively works the crossword in the Post. There’s a young family sitting in a booth just down from them, the mother fussing over the contents of the baby’s cup. He notices these things as they sit and wait for their bill to be collected. Scully leans against him, her hand in his, watching too. They are comfortable, easy.  

“You ready?” he asks when the bill is paid. She nods and slips down from her stool. He holds the door for her and they exit onto the street. Sunday morning in Bethesda is pleasant - crisp and bright with early Spring sunshine - and the sidewalk is busy with a myriad of people going places. Five minutes of walking separates the diner and her house, and his car is parked up there, so they should just begin to make their way back, but for a moment they both hesitate, eyes blinking against the glare of light. “Thanks, Mulder, that was… really good.” She gives him an apologetic smile, ducking back under the diner’s awning to keep from squinting up at him before admitting, “Much better than the sushi.”

“As if we need more evidence that it’s always best to leave the big decisions to me.”

She gives no objection and his joke falls away into silence. He has enjoyed their breakfast too. It’s been good these last few months to make an effort like this, to spend time in one another’s company away from work and to _choose_ to be together. To go on actual dates. It’s been slow going, but they are now a far cry away from estranged.

But these thoughts are his own, not hers. Nothing has been acknowledged by Scully – no comments or remarks about the change in the air, or the shift in the ground. It is as if, in her eyes, nothing remarkable has happened at all. He’s not even sure if she thinks there is more here than casual sex and dinner dates. After the Poundstone case, he too thought that that was all it was, but with each day that has passed, he’s come to realise that, to him, ‘casual’ is the wrong word entirely. In an ironic reversal of roles, he’s bitten the apple and all he wants is more.

He fiddles with the zip on his sweater. In his pocket, his phone buzzes audibly with an email alert, a distraction, and Scully eyes him with amusement as he quells the urge to check what it is, then chuckles at her expression. “I must resist,” he says in a robotic tone and folds his arms as if to prevent itchy fingers from doing as they wish.    

Another pause. Cars pass by on the street, their Doppler effects marking the passage of minutes in swoops of sound. Intermittently, pedestrians side-step around them. “Hey... Do you want me to help you sort stuff out before I head off?”

It’s an open, friendly offer, the sort of offer he’d have made twenty years ago without a second thought, but these days he finds that he is always expecting her to think he has an agenda. It reminds him vaguely of nature programmes he’s watched, where the hopeful male approaches the female with some kind of tentative proffering, aware that her mood will determine whether she consumes the gift or him.   

Scully looks down at her too-white sneakers, considering. She’s not going to eat him today, he realises. “That’d be great, Mulder. I’m not sure what will need to be done, but I’m going to need the door looking at for sure.”

He nods. “Let’s get to work, then.”

***

Back at her high-tech house, it truly is a godawful mess. The fire department have been and gone and a hazard warning cordon ribbon flutters around the entrance. Broken glass litters the ground like scattered pieces from an impossible jigsaw and the walls are black and cracked from the explosion. Gingerly, Scully steps through the debris and over the threshold, surveying the damage with the evaluative eyes of a scientist. The sprinklers have at least done their job and it looks like any flames were put out promptly. Her couch is soaked through. The water has mixed with plaster dust and every surface seems thick with dirt; footprints from the firefighters’ safety boots track through the filth. She sighs. “Well, I think it’s safe to say my security deposit is history.”

“I’d say the Zuemz is history too,” Mulder says and pokes his toe at the burnt out husk of plastic and metal in the hallway. “Shame. It coulda helped us out.”

Scully huffs, a woman scorned. “Get that damn thing in the trash, Mulder. I’m done with gadgets; I’m getting the mop and broom.”

“Nothing wrong with old school, Scully.” He bends and picks the inert carcass of the Zuemz up and lopes outside to the trash.

Scully wanders dazedly from one room to another, noting broken pieces of pottery from the smashed vase in the hall, but beyond that, the significant damage seems isolated. In the kitchen, spilled coffee has stained the floor tiles and the hail of ice cubes has left behind dozens of small, sad pools of slowly evaporating water. The refrigerator display is dark and Scully opens the door to find the power off, in doing so releasing the last gasp of cool air from within. She toggles with the switch but nothing happens and she supposes the poor, bewildered machine has bitten the dust, overwhelmed by its sojourn into the world of artificial intelligence. If it is possible to feel sympathy for a refrigerator, Scully realises that she feels it now.  

She grabs the mop and broom from the cupboard and returns to the porch to find Mulder standing loose-limbed in the doorway talking on his phone. “Yes, she’s here right now,” he is saying. “I’ll pass her on.” He covers the phone’s microphone with his palm and stage whispers, “Landlord. He can get someone to come this afternoon and secure the place, but sounds like it’ll be next week before your door can be replaced. You need to confirm the details because he’s kind of suspicious of me. Not my name on the tenancy, and all that jazz.”

She takes the phone from him. “Where did you find the number, Mulder?”

“Oh, Scully, you don’t change that much.” He waggles a small black leather journal in her face. “Same little black book as always. Though it’s good to see I’m still your number one emergency contact.” With a peeved snatch, she grabs the journal from him and tucks it under her arm, feeling just a little invaded by his knowledge of her. “I’ve been telling you for years that you really should think about something more covert. Anybody could get their hands on this.”

“The passwords are all encoded.”         

“Ah, but I can code break like a pro.” His face is blank but his eyes are twinkling with tease. “Don’t worry, Scully, your secrets are safe with me. And I promise not to order any extras on your Pure Romance account either.”

As he takes the mop and broom from her with a grin and a wag of his brows, she swats at him then heads off down the hallway to continue the call.

When she returns, he has picked up and swept away all the debris from the lounge and porch, and is now in the kitchen, soaking up the spillages with a cloth. He has his back to her and she pauses in the door to watch him work before announcing her presence. She allows her eyes to slide up the muscles of his thighs and settle on the flash of honey brown skin at his waist as his sweater shifts upward with his movement.

“Wait... Something’s wrong,” she says with mock horror. “There’s been another body swap. Where’s the agent formerly known as Fox Mulder?”

“Ha, ha, ha.” He rinses the cloth out in the sink and turns to look at her. “Be glad it’s not Morris back again. I bet he didn’t know one end of a broom from the other.”

She chuffs a laugh and pushes his phone into the back pocket of his jeans. “Someone should be here in about an hour to board up, but I’m going to need to take some time off on Monday afternoon to supervise while a new door is fitted.”

“Whatever you need, Scully.”

Mulder’s efforts have rendered the kitchen more orderly now, and she feels a measure of tension leave her body, marked by a yawn that seems to come from the soles of her feet. “Sorry, Mulder, joking aside, I feel like I’ve left you to do all the work.”

“You can pay me back later in sex,” he says boldly. “Go take a nap. I’ll keep on being your domestic god.”

The offer is hugely tempting, and for a moment Scully wars with herself, fantasising about cool sheets and the soft embrace of sleep. But there’s still a lot to do and it really isn’t fair to leave him working alone. “It’s okay, I’m fine. If we work together, it’ll be done faster.”

“There’s no I in TEAM.”

“Only in FBI,” she adds. “Let’s mop the floor.”

Mulder takes the mop from her while she fills the bucket with soapy water and then carries it down to the porch. Together, they move the salvageable furniture to one side of the room, and he begins to mop. “I’m kinda surprised that your house doesn’t clean itself, Scully,” he says as he works. “I don’t know how you live like this, but it’s smart, that’s for sure. I went for a pee and the toilet spoke to me.”

She laughs. Trust Mulder to make something he doesn’t understand sound eminently ridiculous. “Okay, I’ll admit that’s an annoying feature. I have frightened myself in the middle of the night a couple of times.”

“I guess I just prefer my home to be... hm...” His voice trails off and she senses that he is biting his tongue. Which isn’t all that surprising really. This house she chose away from him is light years from the house he lives in, the one they chose together.

Scully looks at him pointedly. “You prefer your home to be homely, right?”  

“Call me old school, Scully,” he says with a shrug.

She thinks of his clutter and his mess and the piles of books and journals and newspapers on every available surface; the fire that smokes if the wind is blowing in the wrong direction; the mismatched furniture and the wooden flooring scarred from eighty odd years of footsteps; the wild and untameable backyard; the weird L-shaped bathroom with that ancient enamel tub that always took forever to fill but once it was full was like sinking into Heaven; the cold drafts and the creaking floors and the warm touch of the sun on the wide open porch and thinks that there is no word big enough to describe how much she’s missed the place.

This house she found in suburbia is everything their house is not. Smooth lines and stylish design, muted colours, mood lighting, stainless steel and, she realises, a vacuum for the soul. Perhaps that was why she took the place; it sucked out every painful and guilty feeling she’d had about walking away from the home they’d made together.

She deflects the burgeoning path of her thoughts with words, uneasy with the truth she’s exposed. “I’ll go change the water,” she says and picks up the bucket.

An hour later, and the lounge is looking as good as it can reasonably hope to look, given what it’s experienced. Mulder stands back and stretches. “What’s left to do?” he asks.

“I think we’re done in here. What about the kitchen?”

“If you’ve got some spray cleaner or something like that, I’ll see if I can shift the coffee stain on the--”

“Or we could just have a coffee?” she suggests. He grins. There is only so much domesticity Mulder can serve up at once.  

“That works too.”

She makes them coffee and they retreat to the little sunroom at the back of the house, where Mulder sits on the designer rattan couch and looks out of place, all long limbs and awkwardness amid the neutral-toned throw cushions. She thinks about how if this was his house, he’d have had his feet on the coffee table in seconds. And so would she.

But instead they sit here and sip their coffee and it feels a bit like the strange silence of that deserted sushi restaurant before it turned on them.  

“Is the alarm still working?” he asks, snapping her out of her train of thoughts.

“I reset it, but I won’t be able to activate it until the new door is fitted. Something to do with the sensors.”

“Are you going to be okay stopping here on your own?”

A glance at her, eyes dark with concern and… something else.

“I’ll be fine. I’m a big girl, Mulder,” she tells him with a smile. “And I’ve got my weapon.”

“Okay.”

He looks deflated and for a moment she curses herself for cutting him down like that. She’s stayed late at his place many nights since they started this thing they’re doing, but has always taken herself away before the end of the night. They’ve had sex in the kitchen, on his couch, on the rug in front of the hearth, but she’s not once made it up the stairs to the bedroom or allowed herself to wake in the morning in his arms. She knows what it is: it’s a trick of the mind to convince herself that she’s in control and that she’s not falling into the abyss with him all over again. It’s probably the same reason why last night was the first time he’d seen this house.

A knock at the window breaks the tension and she looks up to see a dark-haired man in work pants and a logoed t-shirt smiling and waving at her. “Door,” she explains to Mulder and gets up to let the guy inside.

She comes back to find him leaning forward, perusing the books on her glass coffee table with a distant look in his eyes, as if the words are in a foreign language he doesn’t understand. “ _The Little Book of Hygge_ , Scully?” he queries.

She smiles and ducks her head in vague embarrassment. She bought the book as a passing fancy while wasting a lonely Saturday in Barnes & Noble just after her mother died, only to get it home and realise on reading it that her life was about as far from the concept of hygge as it was possible to be. She is torn between rebuking Mulder for his obvious presumption about her quality of life and admitting that, as usual, his observation is spot on.

“It seemed like something to aim for,” she explains self-consciously.

He chuckles and drops the book back on the table. He drains his cup, then sighs and blurts out, “Scully, you know I’m not one to beg, but please...” His eyes fix on hers. “Come back with me. I don’t like the thought of you here on your own with plywood instead of a door and I’d, um... I’d like it if you did.” God damn his earnestness, she thinks, as she feels her resolve weakening under his steady gaze. “You could bring sweatpants and candles and we could do hygge till Monday.”

She takes a deep breath in. It’s just a weekend, she tells herself. It’ll be like a really long date. It doesn’t mean she’s moving back in with him for good. “Okay. Until Monday.”

***

The house is freezing cold when, several hours later, they beat up the porch steps and enter, a result of the front door hanging ajar all night. The lights are still on and Mulder goes around the room switching them off. There’s no sign of the swarm of miniature drones he claims chased him out of the house, and apart from the chill, everything looks undisturbed.   

Her overnight bag in two hands, Scully stands just inside the door, feeling fatigue overwhelming her in a great soaking wave, as if the air around her is the ultimate soporific. She wants to drop on the couch, curl up there and sleep for days, but it feels wrong to walk into what is now his house and behave as if she’s never left. Mulder, who has been making a somewhat chivalrous attempt to tidy up some of his clutter, realises that she is still standing in the doorway. “Scully? You okay?”

She’s wordless, mute, and can’t make her body move. “You’re exhausted,” he says and takes the bag from her, tossing it to the floor. His arms enfold her and she feels her legs going weak with the relief of his embrace. The hard plane of his chest seems made to fit her face. He smells just like he should.

The next thing she knows, he is swinging her up into his arms and is carrying her up the stairs. Eyes closed, she listens with half an ear to the creak, creak, creak of the steps as he climbs, the scuff  of his shoes on the wooden floor and the steady beat of his heart beneath her cheek.

He kicks open the door to his bedroom – their bedroom – and sets her down on cool sheets. He closes the drapes, shutting out the fuzzy late afternoon sun, then returns to her side. She feels like she’s floating above her body as he takes off her shoes and clothes, stripping her down to her underwear, then cocooning her with the comforter. Two intakes of breath later, she hears the dull thump of his belt on the floor and the bed dips gently as he slides in behind her. Already nearly insensible, she shifts backwards – a move more instinctive than she’d ever confess to him aloud - while he wraps his arm around her. His breath, slow and warm and familiar on the back of her neck, sends her sinking into sleep.

***

Scully wakes with a surge and a sputter of breath, like a dying soul given mouth to mouth and rescued from the brink. It takes her a few thumping heartbeats to realise where she is and, embarrassed, she lies still and tries to centre herself. The back of her neck is damp with sweat but it is nothing to do with it being a warm night; if anything the night is colder than usual.

She isn’t sure what exactly woke her. She feels like she’s been dreaming but she can’t remember what about, only that now she feels disoriented, as if she’s been thrown from a moving vehicle. The room is dark but for the ethereal glow of an almost-full moon that seeps in through a gap in the drapes. They have slept past evening and into night, so it seems.

Not wishing to wake Mulder, she shifts and slips out of bed, silent as a shadow, taking a long look around the room, placing herself, and feeling her heart rate return to normal. Little has changed from before, when this room was theirs and not his; but despite this, there are subtle differences. Something new, an evergreen, waffle-textured rug, is on the floor on his side of the bed, and where the vanity used to be full of her clutter, now it has only a haphazardly piled tower of books for company. She knows this room like it is her own, but feels strangely out of place.

In his sleep, Mulder has rolled onto his back and flung an arm above his head. He lies as still as a Venetian carving, the only movement his full bottom lip puffing gently out as he breathes. One long leg has slipped out from beneath the covers and Scully stands and stares at him, her head full of memories.

Dehydration fuzzes in her brain, so she picks up the plaid throw from the foot of the bed, swings it around her shoulders and heads down to the kitchen for a drink of water.

The tap squeals as she fills a glass – one of the ones she bought from the flea market in Arlington – and drinks it down, then refills again. She opens the front door and steps out onto the porch. Taking a seat in one of the faded chairs, she breathes deep of the night air. It swells in her lungs, cold as the sea, unpolluted, sharp. Her skin prickles like static. She could go back inside, but she doesn’t and instead just pulls the throw tighter around herself.

It is peaceful out here, a world away from the streets of Bethesda and D.C. There is no rush of traffic, no alarms klaxoning, no shouts or yells or other sounds of human habitation. They have spent hundreds of nights sitting out here in the quiet, eating steaks or pulled pork from the grill, drinking beers and talking of everything and nothing, cosy in one another’s intimacy. Hygge, indeed, she thinks.

The memories stir up regrets. Leaving was her choice, she knows that. He’d have held on to the fraying rope of their relationship, a man swinging above an abyss, until someone cut it. And he did, until she cut that rope and ended it. At the time, it felt like the right thing to do, a necessary thing. But looking back lends a certain kind of objectivity to it all and in its most simplest form, she realises that for all her sound and carefully analysed intentions, she has done nothing but imprison herself in a tower of her own creation, and is the poorer for it. She calls the uber-modern house in Bethesda home, but really, her heart never left this unremarkable house.

She sighs and twists the glass of water between her fingers as she thinks. The last year has brought them back to where they’ve been before: reopened X-files, FBI partnership, and a rekindled relationship. And it’s been good. She’s felt energised for the first time in years. Alive. Now, though, she feels like she’s standing on the edge of something with a choice of whether to jump or step back. The cautious scientist within her says that she needs more time, a greater depth of evidence before she commits herself to a conclusion. But since Judy Poundstone’s cruel reminder, she’s been acutely aware that time is no longer something she has in abundance.  

Behind her, the door creaks and she looks up to see him standing in the doorway, jeans and t-shirt pulled hastily on, his hair sticking up and his eyes sleepy with concern. “Scully?”

“I’m fine, Mulder,” she rushes to reassure him. “I woke up and needed some air.”

“I thought for a moment you’d done your old trick on me.” He smiles and she knows he is remembering the times back when they were still fresh and new and she used to wake and leave his apartment before the dawn.

She thinks of the Buddhist temple and Mulder’s battered leather couch and the chances and choices of twenty-five years flash through her head. Has it all been leading to this moment? “No, I’m still here.”

He steps towards her, spreading his arms invitingly. “C’mere.” She can read the tenderness in his eyes, and underneath it, the old familiar burn of desire. Nothing has changed, yet everything is different; it’s a bizarre paradox worthy of investigation in itself. She rises and fits her body into his arms, turning her head to rest against the gentle arc of his chest. She tremors. Why is this all so stupidly conflicted? If Mulder could hear her thoughts, he’d tell her that she’s overanalysing and he’d be right. But that doesn’t make things any easier.

Several minutes pass in silence as they stand together, Scully listening to the steady rhythm of his heart. His hands trail up her back, smoothing and stroking. “I know what you’re thinking, Scully,” he says after a long moment.

“You do?”

“You’re thinking that you’re frightened of this...” His voice trails into a whisper. “Of starting again on a path that you’ve walked before.”  

“Mulder, I...” She tilts her head up and looks at him. “I’m not frightened. I’m uncertain. And I just... I need to take things slowly.”

“It’s okay to worry about the future, Scully.” He reaches up and encloses her face in his hands, thumbs skidding across her cheekbones, looking deep into her eyes like he can see the inner reaches of her soul. “There’s no way to know what’s going to happen. You can’t plan for it. But you can choose your path, or you can hold on for the ride, whichever you believe. I’ve made my choice. I made it a long time ago, and nothing has changed for me.” He kisses her forehead and she thinks that she has never known tenderness like his. “You’re part of my soul, Scully, and I’ve loved you since the beginning of everything. In this world of temporary things, you’re the one thing I’d choose to keep forever.”

Damn him, she thinks, as he holds her gaze and she feels something powerful and undeniable pool inside her. Even in their darkest moments, all he’s had to do is look at her and deliver one of his lines – the ones that seem like he’s crafted each word to perfectly sink into her heart – and she’s putty in his hands. She feels it now, the last pieces of resistance capitulating, and knows then that she’s going to jump.   

His eyes sink lower, his focus falling to her lips. He nudges her nose with his, caressing it, then his mouth moves over hers, ghosting, barely there. He plucks at her lower lip, touches a little more tangibly, then withdraws. It is both terrifying and erotic. The cool touch of his skin reminds her that they are outside, but she is far from cold; her body is all of a sudden burning up. She opens her mouth to him and his tongue slides inside. The heat within her surges and bubbles up. Paradoxically, she shivers.

Long minutes pass, punctuated by mutual breaths and touches. Their kissing deepens.

Then, slowly, he steps back and smiles at her. His gaze is soft, his eyes dark with desire, and he holds out his hand to her. “Stop thinking, Scully, and come back to bed with me.”

Acquiescence, and she nods. She takes his hand.

He kisses her in the kitchen after she places her glass in the sink and then again at the foot of the stairs before they make their way up. Each time she feels something within her slip seamlessly into place, like pieces of a jigsaw that has lain unfinished and neglected.

He pushes the door to the bedroom open and backs inside, still holding her hand, then turns to face her at the foot of the bed. He has turned on his bedside lamp and now the room is filled with warm, yellowish light. The huge throw trails around her bare ankles and he slips his hands inside it to clasp around her ribcage. His fingers trace the pianoforte of bones beneath her skin before cupping each breast reverentially and thumbing the hard nipples. He kisses her again. This time, his hands go to her hair and he tucks it behind her ears on both sides, pulling back a moment to smile widely. Later, she will wonder about that smile and he’ll tell her that the look of her hair in that style reminds him of old times, of the stench of the autopsy bay and her blue as the sea eyes meeting his through clumsy plastic goggles. Another kiss, deeper now, his tongue filling her mouth and hers reaching to meet his. “Mmm, Scully,” he hums.

Slow realisation comes to her that the throw has pooled at her feet and now she is standing here in her underwear while he is still fully clothed. In answer, her fingers tug at his t-shirt, urgent for equal ground. He grabs the hem and pulls it over his head; she hears the soft whumpf as he flings it aside. Then her hands go to his jeans. Pop, and the button is released, the zip pulled and she is pushing them down over his hips.            

Desire fuelled, her gaze runs over his torso; age has changed him, like it has her, but he’s in the best shape of his life and it shows in muscles like a diagram from one of her textbooks. She wonders a moment about how she has so rarely felt small in Mulder’s presence, and yet here she stands, heart-high with his cock jutting into her belly. She looks down and touches him gently, watching him grow towards her still more. He sighs. Without warning, he spreads his hands down her back, flicking the clasp on her bra and casting it aside, then pushing her panties to the floor. He lifts her beneath her thighs and carries her the three strides to the bed, before laying her down, crawling above her and settling into the valley of her opening legs.

His mouth is heavy against hers, wet and heat-sunk, sinuous and blind in its adoration. He kisses her like he is saving her life. She thinks in flashes of Antarctica and Donnie Pfaster and Tooms and all the other entries in the hideous record book of Personal Endangerment Courtesy of Fox Mulder and his X-Files. He’s saved her life a hundred times but, she realises, it’s never really been about the peril. It’s always been about his love.

***

Her skin is warm as he tracks his lips down her body and she shivers in anticipation when he slides past her belly button. Planting worshipful kisses on her pubic bone, he pushes her thighs apart and takes a deep breath, smelling the accent of her arousal, knowing she is already wet for him.

“Mulder,” she says, as if she is about to begin a question, and in answer, he lays his mouth on her. Her spine arches and the question disappears as he strokes firmly, circling around, then pushing his tongue against her entrance. All of a sudden, her fingers are in his hair, rubbing random patterns born of distracted urging, and as he licks and tastes, he hears her small, familiar sounds, growing in intensity. He drags her leg over his shoulder, gripping her hips tightly and redoubles his efforts.

His fingers take the place of his mouth, slipping through the slick wetness at her core. Two long fingers push inside her and for a moment, he works his thumb in tandem, rubbing lightly around the small bud of her clit while his fingers beckon inside her.  

Scully makes a sound halfway between a cry and a sigh and pushes up against him. He pauses, blows softly against her inner thigh, then returns and begins a more considered study, suckling and lapping alternately. He hears her whimper and he presses closer, keeping his rhythm steady. His cock is almost painfully hard and he reaches down to palm himself roughly. He knows from experience that it is quite possible to come just from watching her seek her pleasure but the last thing he wants is for it to end like that now.

Sweet arousal is running down his chin and along his fingers. “Scully, you taste so fucking good,” he murmurs against her. At his words, she cries out and he feels a change to her movement. She is close. He traces a hard circle around her clit with his tongue, then at his next stroke, feels her gather and release, her whole body bucking with the force of her orgasm and her walls rippling around his fingers. “That’s it,” he soothes, using the flat of his tongue to bring her gently down through the final waves until she slows and relaxes into the bed. Her fingers release their hold on his hair and sweep over the sheets, limp and heavy-limbed like a rag doll.     

Satisfied, Mulder watches her a moment, glad beyond measure to see her again in this bed. She opens her eyes and gives him a soft, sated smile. “Hey.”

“Hey yourself. That better?”

“Mmmm...” She stretches like a cat in sunshine.

“You needed some time out of mind... To make you feel my love.”

“Adele,” she says. “I like that song.”

“Dylan, actually, but let’s not nit-pick.”

Scully smiles and reaches for him. “Come here, Mulder,” she tells him and he smiles in return and starts to kiss his way back up her body, pausing to rub his hand around her breast and suckle briefly on a nipple. She takes him in her embrace and slides her leg around his waist. He thrusts eagerly against her, his cock rock hard against the cushion of her thigh, wanting to slide home. She rubs her hands over his back, his biceps, then pulls him in for a kiss. His mouth is wet from her juices and he knows she will be able to taste herself. Soft, oozing kisses occupy them for a moment, tongues shifting like candle flames, but he is throbbing with urgency now and desperate to bury himself inside her. He shifts his hips and positions himself, then pulls back.

“Scully... Scully,” he says. “Look at me.”

She forces her eyes to open and meets his gaze as he pushes up and into her. Wet as she is, there is still tightness and he feels the delicious pressure as he pushes through it. Mulder sees the glow of want in her eyes as he fills her, feels her legs fall open a little further and her hands clutch at the muscles of his back. A moan escapes her lips.  

He kisses her cheek and starts to move, tauter than a zip wire, almost trembling with the effort of keeping his movements slow and controlled. He groans softly and nips the skin above her clavicle. Soon, they are in their most practised rhythm and he can feel the tension gathering within him, building exponentially. “Scully,” he urges her. “If you’re close too, touch yourself.”

She gasps and pushes her hand between their bodies, finding her centre. Mulder moves faster. He is a breath away. Leaning down, he kisses her again and she meets him eagerly, her mouth opening to his tongue. It’s here. Against her mouth, he utters something half words, half incomprehensible and thrusts hard into her as orgasm overtakes. In return, she grabs at his lower back, as if she can somehow pull him in further. He collapses on her chest, breathing hard, as the final waves wash over him.

Minutes pass. Silence settles itself around them and Mulder feels his heartbeat begin to slow. Finally, he tries to roll onto his back, hoping to take her with him and keep them joined, but he is softening fast and he feels himself slip out. He’s not sure she came a second time, so he gathers her into his arms, kissing her neck and cheek and asks her.

“No,” she murmurs. “But it was still...mmm...” Her voice drifts away.

“Hm-mmm...” He, too, feels a little beyond words. There is no need for an evaluation now. With his finger, he paints the outline of a star on the gentle curve of her belly. “Tha’s good... I may be old, Scully, but for me, that was a rediscovery of youth,” he concludes with a low chuckle.

“Maybe we should open a file on it.”

“Maybe,” he agrees. Sleep is gnawing at him; the post-orgasmic fade into catatonia has always been a weakness.  

Scully shifts slightly, then eases out of his embrace and goes out to the bathroom. Mulder lies spread-eagled and insensible on the bed, gazing sightlessly up at the cracks in the ceiling. She is gone for a long time, long enough for him to recover his senses, and he is just starting to worry that she’s taken flight again when she wanders back into the bedroom, naked and glorious and smiling. She carries a damp washcloth and she crawls onto the bed and uses it to clean him up, delicate touches to his over-stimulated skin.

When she has finished, she sets the cloth to one side, then looks down at him. Her face is serious, expectant, on the verge of revealing something. He waits for her. The soft light from the bedside lamp makes her positively glow and he thinks she has never seemed more beautiful than she does right now. Her eyes are like the start of the universe. Something in his chest is pulling hard, a cord stretched tight to her somehow, and he feels her close. 

She places the flat of her palm on his chest, above his heart, and closes her eyes. Mulder holds very still, letting her touch him, until she opens her eyes again and a tiny frown forms on her brow. “You’ve never stopped, have you?”

It takes him a moment to realise what she’s talking about. “No,” he replies. “I couldn’t even if I wanted to.” He sits up and takes her face in his hands. “You had me at that first handshake, Scully.” She smiles, self-conscious. “I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t in love with you.”

“Mulder, I... I know I’ve not been very clear about what we’re doing here and I’m sorry. I really am. I’ve heard everything you’ve said tonight and I want to believe it all...” She sighs and closes her eyes. “I don’t think I ever really fell out of love with you. I just needed to find my way again.”

“I understand, Scully.”

“I know you do.”

“I think we both did, really.”

She reaches up and holds his face too, reflection, mirror. Her eyes are soft and he knows she is still thinking; she kisses him, gently, reverently. “Can I come home, Mulder?”

He feels the line between them reeling in. Slowly, he nods, then pulls her down to the bed beside him, tugging her in closer, like his shadow. “You’re home.”

 

The End.  

 

~~~

When the rain is blowing in your face  
And the whole world is on your case  
I could offer you a warm embrace  
To make you feel my love

When the evening shadows and the stars appear  
And there is no one there to dry your tears  
Oh, I hold you for a million years  
To make you feel my love

I know you haven't made your mind up yet  
But I will never do you wrong  
I've known it from the moment that we met  
No doubt in my mind where you belong

I'd go hungry; I'd go black and blue  
And I'd go crawling down the avenue  
No, there's nothing that I wouldn't do  
To make you feel my love

The storms are raging on the rolling sea  
And on the highway of regret  
The winds of change are blowing wild and free  
You ain't seen nothing like me yet

I could make you happy, make your dreams come true  
There's nothing that I wouldn't do  
Go to the ends of this Earth for you  
To make you feel my love, oh yes  
To make you feel my love

                           Adele/Bob Dylan

~~~


End file.
